This morning I wake up to day five of continual rain here in dry season Phuket. The rain is still coming down, slightly lighter than the downpours of yesterday, but still heavy. The usual morning sing song greeting from the staff here has changed from a cheerful "Sawadeeka" to "more raining..." but still, of course, delivered with a nice smile! The forecast is still a bit iffy. I tried to check and the Thai meteorological site recommended by the UK foreign office on its tweets is "not available" - perhaps just overloaded.
The problem is an area of very low and very slow moving pressure sitting over the whole of Southern Thailand just dropping its rain out of the sky. But Phuket is coping a lot better than poor old Koh Samui. It's odd looking at pictures online of places I was happily and hotly wandering around a few weeks ago, now waist high in water and boats going up and down the roads. This picture is Chewang, Koh Samui, the road where I popped into Boots just a few short weeks ago.....
There's no power in the whole of Lamai where I was staying. The airport there has been closed for two days now, and the ferry services are also suspended, so people there are a bit trapped. One of the main problems on Koh Samui is that a lot of the hotels have been built right on the beach and have solid walls at the road side, which completely block any natural drainage of water. But it is actually this design thats brings the tourists, letting you go out of your room straight out on to the beach, Catch 22 really. You don't get that nearly so much in Phuket, but that makes it less attractive.
So here in Phuket, whilst still cool, windy and wet, and under a flood and landslide warning, the roads, even my big hill, are still functioning. No chance of a walk though, it's a bit wet even for that, so I take the hotel tuk tuk into town to have yet another wander around the Jungceylon Shopping Mall. That's relatively closed in, the few semi open areas losing the battle with the rain. I have wandered around there so often now, think I could get a job as a personal shopper, I know it so well!
But as well as being glad I am not in Koh Samui right now, I am even happier that I am not in Nakhon Si Thammarat. The rains flooded the local zoo and eleven crocodiles and two bears escaped. So far they have shot one and caught three crocodiles......
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